Newspaper CEOs signal support for growing native advertising revenues
Australia’s top newspaper CEOs have told a forum the market for native advertising in this country will only grow in the years to come.
The comments at last week’s Newspaper Works’ Future Forum come after several high profile attacks on the practice of native advertising, which sees brand-funded content placed alongside editorial on news sites.
“In the US we are seeing a big increase in the amount of marketing dollars which are being siphoned off (into native advertising),” said Michael Miller, CEO of APN News & Media.
“It is 15 per cent of marketing dollars in the US that are spent on native content, in Australia it is only three per cent and I have no doubt that we will see it increase exponentially in the areas of content.”
Miller argued that the name native advertising was a misnomer and that newspapers had always had space for content that was sponsored. The APN boss also argued that the best resources had traditional not been put into the space with the result that other newer players, who specialise in the space were carving out niches in the area and making it far more competitive.
“Call it advertorial, call it product placement, it has been around for a very long time and this (native advertising) is the name we are giving it in the digital environment,” said Miller.
“There was a point that a lot of this content was traditionally given over to the least experienced and not the best people in the business. What we seeing is that native advertising is going to the people at the top of their game and that’s a big learning for us.”
West Australian Newspaper’s Chris Wharton agreed telling the audience: “Native advertising used to be called advertorial. We are monetising probably more directly and there are more of us doing it.”
Fairfax Media boss Greg Hywood told the audience at the Ivy, in Sydney that in the future native advertising would be one of many sources of revenue for publishers.”Each company has multiple engagement points with the audience and they need to. There is always the argument around what this does to our journalism,” said Hywood, who also emphasised the importance of not compromising the journalistic brand in the rush towards native content.
“Our journalism, the independence of it, is absolutely at the centre of what we do because it creates that audience. If you break down the credibility of that you can’t create the audience. You can’t – I mean they’ll just go elsewhere,” he added.
“It is absolutely vital for us but that doesn’t mean that you cannot create third party content and that doesn’t mean that you’re going to be asking an investigative journalist to do a nice piece on a bank. I mean I’m not sure they could cope. Nor should they.
“But there are many highly quality content generators who can be brought in to the organisation on a cost basis to do that.”
News Corp Australia CEO Julian Clarke said the skill involved in native content was not around fooling consumers but rather putting marketers in the “sweet spot” where they found the right audiences in the right context.
“Any marketer knows that the sweet spot in the racket for them is where their product is positioned in the right context. Now we publishers have been doing this for centuries – travel section, finance, what ever it is,” said Clarke.
“So they are there because they know an audience is interested in something themselves and it gives them an environment to represent whatever they have to market.”
However, he also warned that if implemented badly native content had the potential to undermine trust in the brand and drive away both advertisers and audiences.
“The trick for us is not to in any way damage the effectiveness of our brand itself. There is an interesting tension there and like anything else you work your way through it but trust is at the base of all of this,” said the News Corp boss.
“As Greg said, if we lose trust with our readers then the advertisers will be the first to leave.”
Nic Christensen
Well, I never. So these guys think they can present advertising as editorial. And it will be OK. Earth to publishers: it’s not about the journos. It’s about the READERS. Why in God’s name would people read the SMH if they can’t tell whether the copy is real or an ad? This, after all, is the intent: to make ads look like editorial copy. FFS. We know you are desperate and that life is tough. But would you mind getting a grip on your role????
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what a load of self serving twaddle!! So as masters of communication, you provide a convoluted and thinly veiled positioning of the admission you are after the $$ and little else matters. This is just a further confirmation that editorial independence is non existent. Newspapers are just Trojan horses for product promoters.
– newspapers are businesses, with ad revenue as the reason for being (LONG GONE IS THE 4TH ESTATE – There is no social or community responsibility within news papers.
– These guys ALL get paid for getting ad revenue and NOT for having edified readers
– So you are saying the ‘promoted product’ cannot stand the scrutiny of being positioned as a….. well a product advert…………to gain consumer buy in it needs to pretend it is useful editorial information.
– We already have enough ‘tricksy , sneaksy” methods of misrepresenting this is just a further admission that ethics are anachronistic and $$ rule.
I do wish these CEO’s would come clean and just say…….” we dont give a toss what goes in the paper, as long as its got ad revenue attached.” stop pretending you have any journalistic integrity or that you care.
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Isn’t this called “passing off” in legalese? ie trying to give the impression that a product or service is one thing when it is actually something else – pretending.
Trust the newspaper industry to try to give this a respectable name – “native advertising” – what a crock it should be called “deceptive advertising”. It doesn’t matter how popular it is elsewhere or how much you try to give it credibility – it smells bad.
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I just want to rush out to read the latest message from ANZ blue note? It is my favourite source of news. If only I could get the obeid edition of the smh my day would be made. Eddie has such clear commercials.
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